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Amazon S3 and videos

by LegionNate
11 replies
I have heard you can use Amazon S3 to host videos, but my thoughts were that it could be more simple than that... please correct me if I'm wrong. Can't you create screen cast videos using whatever service you use, then simply keep them on your computer in one of the normal video file types, and then maybe zip a few videos into a zipped file, and allow them to be downloaded from a page on your website?

Am I missing anything in that scenario, or is there some other reason to use something like Amazon S3? Thanks.
#amazon #videos
  • Profile picture of the author Blimeyoreilly
    Originally Posted by LegionNate View Post

    I have heard you can use Amazon S3 to host videos, but my thoughts were that it could be more simple than that...

    Am I missing anything in that scenario, or is there some other reason to use something like Amazon S3? Thanks.
    When you say "...could be more simpler than that..." is this because like many you find the AmazonS3 site real hard to get along with (many do)?
    If this is the case try 'Cloudberry' it'll make using AmazonS3 real easy (including streaming videos).

    In short: The good thing about AmzonS3 is it cuts out a lot of problems due to its worldwide relay system meaning you get a more direct connection with the video source (than for e.g., me watching a YouTube video here in the EU etc). Plus bucket loads of visitors on your site viewing a video could actually cause your site to crash but not likely using the AmzonS3 service.
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  • Profile picture of the author cheech1981
    There are a couple of options. One is the bandwidth because the videos stream from other sites. Also with Amazon I think you can add some basic download protection on your video content so that it's not easy to download or embed on other sites.

    But if you don't care about the protection then you can just upload your videos to youtube. YouTube has dropped the 15-minute limit as long as your account is in good standing and you verify a phone number. I just uploaded a 27-minute video and embedded it in my review site.

    For me, I think I'll probably keep using YouTube for now until I get some traffic and then later on I can start with a paid service.
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    • Profile picture of the author Blimeyoreilly
      Originally Posted by cheech1981 View Post

      ... embed on other sites.
      You can still prevent others from embedding your video on YouTube too by the way.
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      • Profile picture of the author cheech1981
        Originally Posted by Blimeyoreilly View Post

        You can still prevent others from embedding your video on YouTube too by the way.
        yeah sorry should have worded it better...i meant it can be good to allow the embedding in some instances to spread your content around, but yeah totally you can turn off the embedding but it's pretty easy to download the videos from youtube so that limits the protection to some extent.
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  • Profile picture of the author coachizzy
    For continuity/membership sites Amazon S3 works very well and so far has been reliable. I still like to embed certain videos in YouTube for more traffic juice but if you have a product, S3 is good to consider as the rates are really cheap. If you use Firefox, they have have an add-on that makes working with S3 very easy. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Thompson
    If you're just talking about delivering digital video files to customers (not streaming them), then you don't need Amazon to start with.

    If you simply use a web host such as Bluehost or whoever, you'll have so-called "unlimited bandwidth". Unless your business starts generating really good revenues, you'll be absolutely FINE using their hosting + some delivery mechanism (DLGuard, membership script, etc). to handle the customer facing part.

    See this tutorial:
    http://outsourcefactor.com/digitaldownloads
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Even if you are just offering those video files as downloads I would still recommend using a service like Amazon S3. It's quickly becoming the standard nowadays. Your customers want fast downloads. If you host the files on your own server and get any sort of decent traffic, the performance is going to suffer and those downloads will get slower and slower.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimShrieves
    I use S3 for all of my videos unless I want them to be picked up by the search engines in which case I'll add them to youtube. If you host the videos on your website, your visitors could easily run into high download times or poor availability. I've never had a problem with s3, and as it's so cheap to use, it's an easy choice for me!
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  • Profile picture of the author LegionNate
    Thanks guys. Sounds like using S3 is a definite.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by LegionNate View Post

      Thanks guys. Sounds like using S3 is a definite.
      It really is not that hard to get setup, it's pretty easy actually... and once you've got it setup then you can use it for all your projects so it's definitely worth the very small learning curve to get ir rolling sooner rather than later.

      I do agree with one of the posters above though. Make sure you download the free Cloudberry software: S3 Software | Free Amazon S3 Browser For Windows - CloudBerry Lab

      It makes using S3 a whole lot easier. Their web interface is a bit clunky so being able to use a program like Cloudberry turns your S3 account into nothing harder than using your regular FTP account.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Thompson
    I use S3 also. But for years I used my cheap website hosting to deliver digital files, and for many files I still do!

    Bottom line is that newbies don't need to worry about doing S3 from day one if it seems confusing or gets in the way of executing. FTP the files to your own server and migrate to S3 when you are ready.

    Ultimately agree, S3 is awesome.
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